Archive for the ‘SUBMARINE’ Category

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – A decade after the raising of the Confederate submarine Hunley off the South Carolina coast, the cause of the sinking of the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship remains a mystery. But scientists are edging closer.

On Friday, scientists announced one of the final steps that should help explain what happened after the hand-cranked sub and its eight-man crew rammed a spar with a powder charge into the Union blockade ship Housatonic off Charleston in February, 1864.

Early next year the 23-ton sub will be delicately rotated to an upright position, exposing sections of hull not examined in almost 150 years.

When the Hunley sank, it was buried in sand listing 45 degrees to starboard. It was kept that way as slings were put beneath it and it was raised and brought to a conservation lab in North Charleston a decade ago.

Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the raising of the Hunley, discovered five years earlier by shipwreck hunter Clive Cussler.

As thousands watched from boats and the shoreline, the Hunley was brought from the depths and back to the lab by barge. Thousands turned out again in April 2004 when the crew was buried in what has been called the last Confederate funeral.

During the past 15 years, about $22 million has been spent excavating and conserving the Hunley, according to Friends of Hunley, the nonprofit group that raises money for the project.

About $10.8 million came from the state and federal government, with the rest raised through donations and tour ticket and merchandise sales. About a half million people have seen the sub that sits in a tank of water at the conservation lab.

An economic analysis earlier this year estimated the project has returned its investment many times over.

The study found that publicity from hundreds of news stories, a half dozen documentaries and a made-for-TV movie has generated at least $30 million in a state where tourism is an $18 billion industry.

“I have absolutely no misgivings,” said state Sen. Glenn McConnell, the chairman of the South Carolina Hunley Commission. “The state is spending millions of dollars to get its message out to get people to visit here and the Hunley, in just one new historic revelation, makes history and makes news all over the world.”

U-Haul also has the picture of the Hunley on the side of 1,200 of its rental trucks that travel throughout the country, essentially free advertising that the company says would otherwise be worth $117 million.

Rotating the sub will allow scientists to, for the first time, completely examine the Hunley’s hull.

It’s a delicate operation, involving replacing the existing slings before the sub is turned upright. The pressure on the straps will be monitored electronically and a laser will monitor to make sure the surface doesn’t get warped.

The Hunley is “a ghost of an iron object,” said senior conservator Paul Mardikian, adding it has “hundreds of different parts and everything has to move together.”

Putting it upright should provide clues to the sinking.

Was it damaged by fire from the Houstonic or perhaps struck by a second Union ship coming to the aid of the blockade vessel? Were the Hunley sailors knocked out by the concussion of the explosion that sank the Housatonic?

The clues indicate the crew died of anoxia, a lack of oxygen which can overtake a person very quickly, and didn’t drown. The remains showed they were at their crank stations and there was no rush for an escape hatch.

McConnell concedes he didn’t expect the project to take so long and thought it would have been in a museum by now.

“The Hunley is a very complex artifact and we decided we had only one chance to do it and that was to do it right,” he said.

He estimates the Hunley could now be displayed in a museum by 2015.

Conservation of such artifacts often takes years, underwater archeologists say.

It was almost 30 years before the Swedish royal warship Vasa, which sank in 1628 in Stockholm Harbor and was raised in 1961, went on display in a permanent museum.

Scientific reports on the Vasa are just coming out, said Lawrence Babits, director of the Program in Maritime Studies at East Carolina University.

“The Hunley is iron and the iron isn’t very thick and iron that has been in salt water is in a very nebulous state,” he said. Putting it in shape where it can be displayed “does take time.”

Frederick Hanselmann, a field archaeologist at the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M said the most painstaking part of conserving iron objects is removing the salts from years in sea water.

Conserving a ship cannon alone can take three to four years, he said.

“For conservation it’s not an unusually long time, especially considering they are conserving an entire submarine,” said Mark Gordon, the president and chief executive officer of Odyssey Marine Exploration.

The company salvaged more than 50,000 coins and other artifacts from the wreck of the SS Republic off Savannah, Ga., in 2003 and while many of those coins are being displayed, some of the artifacts are still being conserved seven years later, Gordon said.

Hunley archaeologist Maria Jacobsen isn’t surprised the cause of the sinking hasn’t been found and expects a new series of questions and answers when the Hunley is rotated.

“I do think with persistence and patience and a good deal of luck we will get there,” she said.

Moscow, August 12 – RIA Novosti. – This day marks five years since the disaster of the Kursk, a major Russian nuclear-powered submarine, in the Barents Sea, which killed the whole crew of 118. Below is the day-by-day record of that tragedy.

AUGUST 12, 2000: The K-141 Kursk, part of a Northern Fleet exercise in the Barents Sea, fails to respond to radio calls. In the night, an explosion is detected where the submarine was thought to operate.

AUGUST 13, 2000: The Kursk is found on the sea bottom, 350 feet underwater.

AUGUST 14, 2000: A Navy spokesman says there is radio contact with the submarine. According to other Navy officials, the crewmen are safe and get fuel and oxygen through a Bell rescue unit. Having received an on-scene surveillance report from submersible video cameras, the Navy says the Kursk ran into the bottom at an angle of about 40 degrees, and the fore end, where the floating rescue chamber should be stored, went into pieces. Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov says there is little hope to save the crew.

AUGUST 15, 2000: The Navy Headquarters officially declares the beginning of a rescue operation. The rescue is hampered by a sea storm. A Northern Fleet official tells reporters that knocks are heard from inside the submarine, indicating that there are alive people onboard.

AUGUST 16, 2000: A rescue submarine Priz repeatedly fails to get into the Kursk. Navy Commander officially calls the West for help and says Russia will accept any assistance.

AUGUST 19, 2000: The second, international, leg of the rescue operation begins late in the day as the Norwegian ship Normand Pioneer delivers the British LR5 rescue mini-sub to the scene.

AUGUST 20, 2000: Minutes after midnight, the Norwegian rescue boat Seaway Eagle brings a deep diving team to the Kursk. After final negotiations, the Northern Fleet rescue force begins a practical Russian-Norwegian-British concerted rescue effort.

SEVERAL HOURS LATER: The Norwegians survey the hull of the submarine for cracks and are looking for air bubbles where people could survive. They de-block the emergency hatch but access to the boat is still hampered. The Norwegian team hastily creates makeshift entry accessories.

AUGUST 21, 2000: In the morning, Norwegian divers enter the 9th rear compartment through an emergency hatch and find it filled with water. A remote-controlled video camera shows a dead body in the compartment thought to be the only one where air bubbles could save lives. Northern Fleet Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Mikhail Motsak officially confirms the deaths of all crewmen.

AUGUST 22, 2000: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in Severomorsk, the main base of the Northern Fleet, to meet victims’ relatives and friends. He fails to explain what happened to the submarine and why the crew was not saved.

Ilya Klebanov, the then deputy prime minister and head of the government commission investigating into the Kursk disaster, says:

“As far back as late August 14, we were all but certain that there were no living people onboard… But we could not state [officially] that all of them were dead. There was still hope, albeit more in theory, for an air bubble in the 9th compartment.”

Klebanov also says the real rescue began on August 13, 6:30 PM Moscow time. The official theory of what caused the crash remains a collision with a large underwater object. Military experts point the finger at a British submarine, amid widespread rumors of a U.S. submarine having been somewhere around when the Kursk collapsed.

DAYS LATER: The New York Times reports two U.S. Navy submarines, one of them Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Memphis later to be found in the Norwegian seaport of Bergen, cruised near Kursk’s operational area at the time of its last exercise. A source tells the Times the Kursk was downed by the explosion of an unfired torpedo. Russians still suspect Kursk’s collision with a foreign submarine the highest probability – a theory U.S. and U.K. officials dismiss and say there were no U.S. and Royal Navy ships when and where the Kursk hit the bottom.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2000: The U.S. shares all information on the Kursk disaster with Russia, including the time of what is thought to be an onboard explosion within a second.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2000: Vladimir Putin takes decision to start the salvage operation on the Kursk.

OCTOBER 2, 2000: Rubin, a St. Petersburg-based design bureau appointed as the head contractor of the salvage, signs a contract with the Norwegian office of Halliburton AS, a major international oil service firm.

OCTOBER 25, 2000: The salvage team begins operation to lift the bodies of the crewmen.

OCTOBER 26, 2000: The divers enter the submarine and examine the bodies. Some people in the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th (fore to aft) compartments are said to have been alive after the explosion. The team finds a farewell message on Dmitry Kolesnikov, the 9th compartment crew leader: “1:15 PM. All men from the 6th, 7th, and 8th compartments are now in the 9th, all in all 23 people. We took this decision after an emergency. There is no way out for us.” The rest of the text is said to be too personal and therefore cannot be published. Vice Adm. Motsak of the Northern Fleet later tells reporters two to three men tried to escape through an emergency hatch but failed because the compartment was full of water.

LATER THAT MONTH: All salvage operations in the aft compartment are suspended.

NOVEMBER 2, 2000: The salvage team attempts to enter the 3rd compartment but fails: The video cameras show what is reported to be “considerable damage, debris of equipment, mechanisms, and instruments.”

NOVEMBER 7, 2000: Salvage in the 4th compartment is suspended due to entry-prohibitive damage inside. The salvage operation is terminated. All Kursk hatches are sealed.

JULY 16, 2001: The first leg of a three-month lift-up operation begins; the 1st compartment is to be separated and special lift-up holes are to be made in the hull.

OCTOBER 7, 2001, EVENING: The lift-up begins. The Kursk remains are lifted on 26 hold-downs operated from the Gigant-4, a surface barge, at a rate of around 10 meters per hour. As the hull is lifted 58 meters (190 feet) from the bottom, the sub is towed by the Gigant-4 to the base.

OCTOBER 10, 2001: The barge with the Kursk hull underneath arrives at the Roslyakovo naval repairs base on the Arctic Kola Peninsula.

OCTOBER 27, 2001: Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov says the whole submarine was on fire, with 8,000 degrees Celcius in the epicenter, after which the submarine was filled with water “within six to seven hours, maximum eight,” according to Ustinov. He says the damage was unbelievable, all bulkheads were “cut off as a knife cuts butter.” However, the nuclear reactor in the 6th compartment was left intact, as were 22 SSN-19 cruise missiles the submarine was armed with. 115 of 118 crew members’ bodies, including that of Captain First Class Gennady Lyachin, the commanding officer, are found and identified.

JUNE 19, 2002: Klebanov as head of the investigative government commission tells reporters the “explosion of a torpedo” remains the only viable theory, amid media reports that the fire was caused by failed tests of the new silent and fast torpedo, Shkval.

JULY 26, 2002: In an official end-of-story statement, General Prosecutor Ustinov says the submarine sank “because of an explosion… in the training torpedo storage… with subsequent explosions of torpedo charges in the 1st compartment of the submarine.”

Whenever I saw this, I always wondered why we went to all the trouble to water the masts when cycling them inport when it clearly doesn’t hurt them to dry-cycle in the case of commissioning ceremonies.

We take a look at the inner workings of a Virginia-class fast-attack nuclear submarine built in the US.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

In 2007, at the Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding yard in Newport News, Virginia — where the first of the next-generation aircraft carrier class, the Gerald R. Ford, is currently under construction — the US Navy rolled out the North Carolina, the fourth of the Virginia-class fast-attack nuclear submarines.

Today, the North Carolina (SSN 777) is stationed at the New London Submarine Base (as seen in the image above), commanded by Wes Schlauder. The Virginia is the first class of submarines to have true 21st century on-board communications, including a fibre-optic intranet, a server room and large digital screens placed throughout the ship that show what is being viewed through the periscope.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

This sign greets all who come aboard the North Carolina.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Most submarine movies have created the romantic image of the skipper in a darkened room, looking through two eye holes, at what can be seen with the periscope. But with the Virginia class, that classic image is no more. Now, the imagery coming from the periscope is translated on to large digital monitors that are spread throughout the North Carolina, including here, in the main control room, as well as in the commander’s personal quarters.

The photo above shows a zoomed in image of the classic submarine Nautilus, at the museum that is adjacent to the New London Submarine Base. The Nautilus is a full kilometre and a half away from the North Carolina, meaning that the image on this screen — which is very crisp — is extremely magnified.

In the lower right quadrant of the screen, the slim wedge represents how much of the 360-degree view from the North Carolina the periscope is looking at.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Here, we see a much wider angle view from the periscope, as designated by the wider wedge.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

In this photo, Schlauder uses the joystick that controls the periscope’s direction and other criteria. With that joystick, anyone can rotate the periscope 360 degrees, tilt the view up or down, and zoom in so that details at a kilometre away are easily discernible.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

In the past, submarines had one sonar room, where the commander could look out through the periscope and where the sonar work was done; and a second room for the drivers of the sub. Now, thanks to modern communications, navigation and driving systems, those separate rooms have been combined into one, modern nerve centre.

This is a view of the pilots’ station, with two seats and a full set of controls for the pilot and the co-pilot.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

This screen showcases all the digital trim controls, those that are used to bring the submarine down or up in the water, based on how much air is in the ballast tank.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

This screen has the digital controls for navigating the submarine.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

A bank of servers in the North Carolina’s computer room. All the digital data on board the submarine flows through these servers.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

In an emergency, the submarine can be forced to the surface in a hurry by pulling these levers, which are located just above the pilots’ electronic navigation station. By pulling these levers, all water is quickly expelled from the ballast systems, which would cause the sub to shoot up to the surface, and likely break through like a whale jumping out of the water.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

This digital screen shows the North Carolina’s coordinates, or any other location, either by virtue of GPS when above water or if under water, by a sophisticated system of sensors that keep highly accurate track of the boat’s movement in three dimensions.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Commander Schlauder looks at two of the North Carolina’s weapons, a Mark 48 torpedo (left) and a Tomahawk missile (in the sheath on the right), which are being held in cradles. The submarine can carry as many as a dozen torpedoes at any time, but if necessary, the torpedo room can be largely cleared out — it is mostly modular — and a Special Forces crew of as many as 36 can be housed here.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Using the special cradle system, the torpedoes are moved into place and then are essentially shoved at high speed out of these tubes. It takes a highly efficient crew about 10 to 15 minutes to prepare and launch a torpedo, though a crew can be working on launching multiple torpedoes in succession.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

There are four tubes in the torpedo room, with two stacks of two on opposite sides of the room.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Torpedoes are hoisted on to the submarine using cranes and are brought in at an angle through hatches above. The torpedoes are then brought down through the levels of the sub at an angle via this slide.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

At the end of the Mark 48 torpedo, this extra device spools out up to 25,000 yards of fibre-thin cable. By staying connected to the submarine, the torpedo can keep constant communications with firing control, which can update the target profile in real time. If the fibre is broken, the torpedo still has enough information and autonomy to complete its last understanding of the target’s location and trajectory.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Commander Schlauder climbs down into the North Carolina.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

This is the lock-out trunk, the compartment that is used when it is necessary to put people out into the water while the submarine is below the surface. Because the North Carolina could carry Special Forces, this is where those personnel might begin their mission, leaving the boat two at a time, using special suits to protect them from the conditions.

But regular submarine crew members are also trained in escape methods, and in the case of an emergency, the crew would also leave via this compartment.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

This is Commander Schlauder’s personal quarters, which includes a fairly complete workstation and where he can even have the imagery from the periscope piped in if something needs to be seen and he’s not in the control room.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

In the commanding officer’s quarters, the bed pulls down from the wall.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

The commanding officer is the only one on board with a single bed. This is the executive officer’s quarters, and if there are any VIPs on board, or anyone else needing special treatment, they will be quartered with the executive officer.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Most of the crew stay in six bunk rooms, and up to eight crew members can share those rooms with at least two on watch at any given time). The North Carolina is big enough that most often it is not necessary for that form of “hot cotting”, which is what it is called when one crew member climbs into a bed recently vacated by another.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

While the North Carolina is a nuclear-powered submarine and can power itself for as long as necessary when underwater — it can produce enough power for a small city — the reactor is deactivated when the boat is in port. Then, for power, the sub is literally plugged into the port’s power supply, as seen here at the North Carolina’s berth at the New London Submarine Base.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

This is the North Carolina’s carbon monoxide burner.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

After going through the carbon monoxide burner, the resulting carbon dioxide is removed by this scrubbing machine. There are two of these for redundancy’s sake.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

It is said that submarine crews are some of the best fed in the military. First, that’s because there is not enough room, as there would be on a surface ship, to carry thousands of pre-prepared meals, meaning that the cooks must prepare meals from scratch. And second, that’s because the good food helps morale, something that’s important for a crew that can be underwater for 90 days or more.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

The crew’s mess on the North Carolina. Each table in the mess is adorned with sports homages to one of the five major North Carolina universities.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

This is the North Carolina’s diesel engine, which is an emergency generator of power if the nuclear reactor stops working and the battery banks aren’t producing enough power as backup.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

The North Carolina is the US military’s fourth with that name. Previous iterations have included an early 19th century ship of the line, and the most recent predecessor was the Battleship North Carolina. This is the silver service from the second North Carolina, an armoured cruiser launched in 1908.

Lots of cool photos. Amazed at how far the technology has come and the use of the same old green and grey paint. I would love to go out to sea for a day on one of these Virginia Class Boats, that would be great!

Wes Schlauder, the skipper of the U.S. Navy’s Virginia class nuclear submarine North Carolina, demonstrates how the sub’s all-new electronic command center–including the state-of-the-art digital visualization of the view from the periscope–has taken the capabilities of undersea warfare into the 21st century.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

GROTON, Conn.–If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like aboard the most advanced submarine in the world, I’m here to tell you all about it.

To be specific, that submarine is the North Carolina, a Virginia class nuclear attack sub based at the Naval Submarine Base New London here, and it is truly a technological marvel.

To begin with, forget all about those romantic images of a dimly lighted sonar room where a captain squints into the eyepiece of the periscope in order to try to see what’s going on outside. Those days are long gone. Aboard the North Carolina, at least.

This is the 21st century, after all, and while much in the military is legacy equipment designed to last decades, the North Carolina is an example of what happens when planners take into account the latest available technologies and apply them to age-old problems.

The sonar room, then, has gone the way of the rotary phone and has been replaced by an all-electronic, nearly paperless, control room that is fully lighted, is completely networked, and which displays imagery gathered from the periscope on large, clear digital monitors. Indeed, should the sub’s commander need to see something through the periscope while he’s taking a nap in his quarters, no problem: the imagery can be piped in wirelessly to his computer, and he can peruse at will.

Welcome to the future of undersea warfare.

The Navy and Road Trip
Different regions of the United States are dominated by different military services. Last year, on Road Trip 2009, I traveled throughout the Rocky Mountain region, and nearly everywhere I went, there was the U.S. Air Force. This year, on Road Trip 2010, I’m traveling through the Northeast, and in this region, its the U.S. Navy that has been nearly ubiquitous.

And now, as part of Road Trip 2010, I’ve come here, to one of the Navy’s most important submarine bases–its submarine school is located here, as are a significant number of other subs (see video below), and I’ve been invited aboard the North Carolina for a personal tour of the boat by its commander, Wes Schlauder.

It turns out–by coincidence of planning, I promise–that the North Carolina also came out of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding in Newport News in 2007, meaning that that facility will likely be one of the very biggest benefactors to Road Trip 2010.

On board
The North Carolina is 377 feet long and has a diameter of 34 feet. When submerged, it weighs 7,841 tons, and can do more than 25 knots at depths below 800 feet. The vessel can carry 38 weapons, including Mark 48 advanced capability torpedoes, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and mines, and it is also set up to carry batteries of special operations forces. It normally has a crew of 134. For now, they’re all men, but the Navy is changing its ways and may soon have some female officers aboard some of its subs. But we’re not there yet.

Where we are is at the dawn of the age of the IT-based submarine. The Navy has embraced technology, and there are plenty of examples of it spread around the North Carolina. There’s even a computer room packed tight with racks of servers that are feeding data throughout the sub via its wired and wireless networks.

According to Schlauder, the North Carolina has also been outfitted with the very latest set of submarine-ready imaging technologies, including infrared cameras, laser-range finders, and digital camera. The infrared may be the most important from the perspective of a sub commander tasked with tracking potential enemies. “Now, I can not just see a surface ship’s running lights,” Schlauder told me. “Now I have IR capabilities, so I can [actually] see the ship, what it is, and how it’s moving. That’s never been available to me previously.”

But perhaps the most clear-cut sign that the North Carolina is the standard-bearer of the Navy’s move to an IT environment is its integration of a fiber optic backbone and a network of networks on board the vessel.

Supercomputing capabilities
As Schlauder put it, Virginia class submarines are designed to take advantage of all the information technology capabilities of the 21st century.

In the past, submarines featured both a sonar room, where the crew could track “contacts,” and a separate area for combat systems. Today, that paradigm is no more. On the North Carolina, the two areas have been combined into one large control room that is packed with networked systems.

That means that in the control room, sonar is set up on the port side, while combat systems are on the starboard side. The idea is to easily share information and optimize information flow, said Schlauder, with the goal of building the best-possible situational awareness and providing the most accurate and complete information to the decision maker, be it the officer of the deck or the commander himself.

Because sonar and combat systems are now in the same space (see video below), it’s easy for the two to share data, and for crew members manning the two areas to talk between themselves as information develops. “They can see what’s going on and hear what’s going on,” Schlauder said, “and take advantage of all that information flow.

In total, the control room is packing hundreds of terabytes of processing power, Schlauder said, which is ultimately being used to help crunch data and arrive at the most complete picture of what any identified contact is and is doing.

With sonar, he explained, it’s all about listening passively. The crew members continually watch screens where all acoustic data is coming in, screens that would look familiar to anyone who has seen “The Matrix.”

Schlauder said the never-ending supply of green symbols on the screen, which are developing, top to bottom–“water falling down,” like a waterfall–are examined in search of contacts. Any kind of anomaly in the patterns could be a vessel of some kind, and as the anomalies move right to left or left to right on the screen, the crew can apply a series of fire-control algorithms and analyze what they’re seeing. The idea is that they can quickly determine what they’re looking at, track its movement and, if it’s wartime and it’s an enemy vessel, create a profile for putting a torpedo on it.

The system is so sensitive, Schlauder said, that not only can the sonar crew tell if a contact is a ship, but they can also determine how many blades its propeller has, whether a blade has some sort of dent, and figure out if it has a diesel engine, or a gas turbine. They could even tell if someone was working a winch on its deck by hearing the banging of chains. It’s about “breaking down the noise and telling us what that contact is doing,” Schlauder said.

The periscope
As noted above, the periscope is another part of the North Carolina that’s moved beyond the worn-out images of the past.

To begin with, there’s no longer any eyepieces. Instead, the entire system is computer based and all visuals projected on any of a number of digital displays. The control? It’s done using a joystick–“it’s like playing an Xbox,” Schlauder said. The Virginia class is the first to move to this kind of system.

On a screen, there is a large cross-hairs splitting the view into four quadrants. The top of the screen is in front of the sub, while the bottom is the rear. On the screen, there is always a green wedge outline that represents where on a 360-degree view you’re looking and how wide the view is. If the image is zoomed in, the wedge is very narrow, while it would be wide if the view is normal range.

The North Carolina, the fourth Virginia class nuclear submarine, rests at its berth at the Naval Submarine Base New London, in Groton, Connecticut.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

I got a chance to play with the system, and after getting the hang of it, I was looking through the periscope–again, on a computer screen–at the old Nautilus, which is now a museum here–about a mile away. The imagery was so good that I could see the faces of people walking on and off that boat.

The sensors
The North Carolina is packed full of the latest and greatest sensors (see video below) designed to help it do its job. And because the vessel was designed for the post-Cold War environment–meaning we’re not rehashing the U.S. versus Soviet Union dynamic of “The Hunt for Red October,” the sub is optimized for working in shallow waters near shore.

The first main sensor, Schlauder said, is a large spherical array that is the primary hull-mounted sensor, and which is capable of looking nearly 360 degrees around the ship. It can listen passively–which is its primary role–but can also transmit actively, including sending out pings into the water.

There are also high-frequency active arrays that are shorter-range, higher-resolution arrays that can passively listen or actively transmit. One is mounted underneath the North Carolina and is intended for looking down and mapping the bottom, especially near shore where the submarine might be trying to avoid dangers like mines. In addition, there is one on the sub’s sail that looks up, mainly for safety in the sense of avoiding sailboats or surface ships, but which can also be used underwater to track another submarine.

And on the side of the boat, Schlauder continued, there are three wide-aperture arrays–acoustic panels–that give those on the sub the ability to look up and down its side. The main purpose here to passively survey a ship, and to be able, without transmitting anything in the water, listen to a contact and compute its range.

Finally, he said, there’s two towed arrays that can be deployed off the boat and trailed behind to survey its surroundings.

Rare opportunity
Getting to tour a nuclear submarine is an unlikely enough opportunity. Getting a tour of what the Navy calls the most advanced sub on Earth is even less likely. And having that tour be led by the boat’s commander seems entirely improbable.

With that in mind, I am still buzzing a bit at having gotten a chance for that experience, particularly because it might be something I never get to do again.

It’s a sobering feeling being below decks on such a vessel, knowing what it was designed for. The world has changed a lot since the Cold War, and it’s not entirely clear what roles submarines will play in America’s new geopolitical environment, but there’s no doubt the Navy thinks it’s worth investing huge sums of money on them.

Having been aboard now, I can’t tell you what I think any outcomes might be. But I do feel that the systems the North Carolina, at least, is equipped with give its commander and crew the best possible chance of emerging from any encounter with the upper hand.